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Every Wednesday, we publish our “Investor Toolkit” series on TSI Network. Whether you’re a new or experienced investor, these weekly updates are designed to give you specific investment advice on a wide range of topics, including strategies for international stock markets. Each Investor Toolkit update gives you a fundamental piece of investing strategy, and shows you how you can put it into practice right away. Today’s tip: “Foreign investments can give your portfolio greater strength and diversity and we recommend three ways you can do this with less risk.” We believe most investors could benefit from holding some foreign investments in their portfolios for added diversification. And growing markets like China and India have positive long-term outlooks. Their populations are generally younger than those in North America, and rising incomes are helping more of them advance into the middle class....

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You’ll read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in one of our three newsletters featuring Canadian stocks—The Successful Investor, Stock Pickers Digest and Canadian Wealth Advisor. HOME CAPITAL GROUP INC. (Toronto symbol HCG; www.homecapital.com) gets 90% of its revenue by offering mortgages to borrowers who don’t meet the stricter standards of larger, traditional lenders, like banks. Clients include self-employed people and recent immigrants with limited credit histories. The remaining 10% of its revenue mainly comes from credit cards and other loans to consumers and businesses....

Every Monday we now feature “A Stock to Sell” as our daily post. With every stock we recommend as a sell, we give you a full explanation of why we advise against investing in the stock at this time. DUNDEE CORP. (Toronto symbol DC.A; www.dundeecorp.com) owns businesses in the wealth management, real estate, natural resource and agriculture industries. The company lost $92.6 million, or $1.88 a share, in 2013. That’s a big drop from the $25.2 million, or $0.29 a share, it earned in 2012. Revenue fell 6.3%, to $200.7 million from $214.2 million....

SHAWCOR LTD. $59 (Toronto symbol SCL; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 60.2 million; Market cap: $3.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.9; Dividend yield: 1.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.shawcor.com) recently completed a big pipeline-coating job at a liquefied natural gas project in Australia. As a result, its revenue fell 3.5% in the second quarter of 2014, to $441.4 million from $457.3 million a year earlier. Earnings per share declined 12.2%, to $0.79 from $0.90. However, new contracts have increased ShawCor’s order backlog. On June 30, 2014, it stood at $684 million, up 10.9% from the start of the year. ShawCor is also bidding on over $1 billion worth of new contracts and should win many of them. ShawCor is a buy.

Pat McKeough responds to many requests from members of his Inner Circle for advice on specific stocks, as well as questions on investment strategy and the economy. Every week, his comments and recommendations on the most intriguing questions of the past week go out to all Inner Circle members. And each week we offer you a report on one of the stocks profiled in these Q&A sessions. Beginning this week, we give you Pat’s buy-hold-sell recommendation as well as his analysis of the stock. This is part of our new approach offering you regular and specific buy, hold and sell advice in our daily posts. Every week you’ll get “A Stock to Sell” on Monday, “Best Canadian Stocks” on Tuesday, and “Our Top U.S. Stocks” on Thursday. This week an Inner Circle member asked us about an acquisition by the largest of Canada’s copper stocks. First Quantum Minerals became the leading Canadian copper producer with its 2013 acquisition of Inmet Mining. Now it is making a major acquisition in Argentina. Pat assesses the company’s projected production from the Taca Taca deposit, as well as the considerable political risk of doing business in financially troubled Argentina. Q: Hi Pat: I’d like to know what you think of First Quantum Minerals. They are in the process of acquiring Lumina Copper, which I own. As always, thank you for your valuable input....

AMERICAN EXPRESS CO. $89 (New York symbol AXP, Conservative Growth Portfolio, Finance sector; Shares outstanding: 1.0 billion; Market cap: $89.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.8; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www. americanexpress.comtarget=”_blank”) started up in 1850 and is now one of the world’s largest issuers of payment cards, with 109.9 million cards outstanding in over 130 countries. Billionaire investor Warren Buffett owns 14.3% of the company.

Amex issues two types of cards: charge cards, which have no preset spending limit and must be paid in full each month; and traditional credit cards, which let users carry a balance.

High-quality clientele cuts risk

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PROCTER & GAMBLE CO. $83 (New York symbol PG; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 2.7 billion; Market cap: $224.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.9; Dividend yield: 3.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.pg.comtarget=”_blank”) plans to sell just over half of its brands over the next two years.

That will let the company focus on its 70 to 80 most popular products, which together account for over 90% of its sales. These include 25 global brands, such as Head & Shoulders shampoo, Gillette razors, Tide detergent and Pampers diapers, that each generate over $1 billion in annual sales.

Meanwhile, Procter’s sales rose 0.6% in its 2014 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2014, to $83.1 billion from $82.6 billion in fiscal 2013. Higher sales volumes (up 3%) and selling prices (up 1%) offset the negative impacts of currency exchange rates (down 2%) and low-margin products (down 1%). Before writedowns and unusual items, earnings rose 5.0%, to $4.22 a share from $4.02.

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FAIR ISAAC CORP. $57 (New York symbol FICO; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 32.2 million; Market cap: $1.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.7; Dividend yield: 0.1%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.fico.com) makes FICO Scores, a computer program that helps businesses make better decisions about customer creditworthiness.

The company recently repurchased $150.0 million of its shares under a buyback plan that ended in July 2014. Under its new authorization, it can buy back up to $250.0 million of shares. That’s equal to 14% of its market cap. There is no time limit for these buybacks.

Fair Isaac is a hold.

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ABB LTD. ADRs $23 (New York symbol ABB; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; ADRs outstanding: 2.3 billion; Market cap: $52.9 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 3.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.abb.com) makes transformers, transmission systems and circuit breakers for electrical utilities. The Switzerland-based firm also produces automation systems and robotics that industrial clients use to improve their productivity.

The company has developed new technology that will let its cables transmit up to 2,600 megawatts of electricity. That’s more than double what today’s highvoltage lines can carry. Demand for these new cables should be strong, particularly from operators of offshore wind farms and oil and gas drilling platforms.

ABB is a buy.

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MCDONALD’S CORP. $95 (New York symbol MCD; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 981.9 million; Market cap: $93.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.3; Dividend yield: 3.4%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.mcdonalds.com) reports that same-store sales at its U.S. outlets fell 3.2% in July 2014 from the same month a year earlier. That’s partly because younger diners are switching to fast-casual dining chains that offer fresher foods. In response, McDonald’s continues to upgrade its menu with healthier options, such as vegetable tortilla wraps.

The company hopes these new menu items are as successful as its improved coffee lineup— since 2009, its coffee sales have jumped 70%. The company now plans to start selling its coffee in supermarkets under the McCafe brand. It will offer a variety of blends and flavours, in bags as well as single-serve pods for home brewing machines.

McDonald’s is a buy.

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DIAGEO PLC ADRs $119 (New York symbol DEO; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; ADRs outstanding: 628.1 million; Market cap: $74.7 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.4; Dividend yield: 2.9%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.diageo.com) reported that its sales fell 9.2% in its 2014 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2014, to 10.3 billion British pounds from 11.3 billion in fiscal 2013 (1 pound=$1.80 Canadian). That’s mainly due to unfavourable currency exchange rates. Earnings per ADR declined 7.3%, to 3.82 pounds from 4.12 (each ADR represents four common shares).

The company recently increased its stake in United Spirits, India’s largest alcoholic-beverage maker, to 54.78% from 28.78%. That should push up Diageo’s fiscal 2015 earnings to 4.64 poundsper ADR. The stock trades at 15.5 times that forecast. However, exchange rate volatility could continue to weigh on the stock price.

Diageo is still a hold.

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NVIDIA CORP. $19 (Nasdaq symbol NVDA; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 541.9 million; Market cap: $10.3 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.8%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.nvidia.com) still gets most of its revenue from graphic chips for computer gaming, but is developing new chips for mobile devices and data centres.

In its fiscal 2015 second quarter, which ended July 27, 2014, Nvidia’s revenue rose 12.9%, to $1.1 billion from $977.2 million a year earlier. Sales of graphic chips (80% of the total) rose 2.3%. However, sales of its Tegra mobile chips jumped 200.0%, because automakers are now using them to power in-car entertainment systems.

Earnings gained 30.1%, to $173.4 million, or $0.30 a share. A year earlier, the company earned $133.3 million, or $0.23 a share. Nvidia spent a high 30.6% of its revenue on research in the latest quarter.

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TEXAS INSTRUMENTS INC. $48 (Nasdaq symbol TXN; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 1.1 billion; Market cap: $52.8 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 4.2; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.ti.com) used to focus on chips for cellphones, but has shifted to analog chips, which convert inputs like touch, sound and pressure into electronic signals that computers can understand. Manufacturers use these chips in a variety of products, including cars, medical devices and appliances.

In the quarter ended June 30, 2014, the company’s earnings rose 3.5%, to $683 million from $660 million a year earlier. Texas Instruments spent $743 million on share buybacks during the quarter. As a result, earnings per share gained 6.9%, to $0.62 from $0.58.

Revenue rose 8.0%, to $3.3 billion from $3.0 billion. Strong demand for analog and embedded processor chips (which perform mathematical calculations) offset lower sales of other chips and calculators.

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BRIGGS & STRATTON CORP. $20 (New York symbol BGG; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Manufacturing & Industry sector; Shares outstanding: 46.7 million; Market cap: $934.0 million; Priceto-sales ratio: 0.5; Dividend yield: 2.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.briggsandstratton.com) is buying Allmand Bros., a privately held Nebraska firm that makes portable lighting products and heaters for construction companies and other industrial users. The purchase will cut Briggs’reliance on weather-dependent products, like lawn mower engines and snow blowers.

The company will pay $62 million for Allmand when it completes the purchase in the next few weeks. The acquisition will add $80 million to Briggs’annual sales.

To put these figures in context, the company’s sales fell 0.2% in its 2014 fiscal year, which ended June 30, 2014, to $1.859 billion from $1.862 billion in fiscal 2013. The lack of major storms in 2014 hurt sales of portable power generators. Overall earnings declined 13.4%, to $39.0 million from $45.1 million. Per-share earnings fell 11.8%, to $0.82 from $0.93, on fewer shares outstanding.

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C.R. BARD INC. $149 (New York symbol BCR; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 74.6 million; Market cap: $11.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.7; Dividend yield: 0.6%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.crbard.comtarget=”_blank”) continues to develop successful new medical devices. For example, it should soon receive approval to start selling a catheter that uses a drug-coated balloon to treat clogged arteries. Products like this are helping Bard offset the 2.3% tax it has to pay on certain medical devices it sells in the U.S. under Obamacare.

In the second quarter of 2014, Bard’s earnings rose 22.0%, to $160.7 million from $131.7 million a year earlier. Earnings per share gained 29.6%, to $2.06 from $1.59. Revenue rose 8.8%, to $827.1 million from $759.9 million. Bard spends around 10% of its revenue on research.

The company recently increased its quarterly dividend by 4.8%, to $0.22 a share from $0.21. The stock has gained 30% in the past year, so the new annual rate of $0.88 yields just 0.6%.

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ALCOA INC. $17 (New York symbol AA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.2 billion; Market cap: $20.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.7; Dividend yield: 0.7%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.alcoa.com) continues to close older, inefficient smelters in response to weak aluminum prices.

The company now plans to shut down its Portovesme smelter in Italy, which will cut Alcoa’s global smelting capacity by 4%.

Severance payments and other costs will cut the company’s earnings by around $0.15 a share in the third quarter of 2014. To put that in context, Alcoa earned $0.18 a share before one-time items in the second quarter.

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CENOVUS ENERGY INC. $31 (New York symbol CVE; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 756.5 million; Market cap: $23.4 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.3; Dividend yield: 3.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.cenovus.com) gets 40% of its output from its Alberta oil sands projects. Conventional oil and gas wells supply the other 60%.

U.S.-based ConocoPhillips (New York symbol COP) owns 50% of Cenovus’s main Foster Creek and Christina Lake oil sands projects. These properties produce heavy bitumen, which Cenovus ships to its 50%-owned refineries in Illinois and Texas.

Phillips 66 (New York symbol PSX) owns the other 50% of these refineries. The company produced 286,188 barrels of oil equivalent a day (70% oil and 30% gas) in the second quarter of 2014, up 9.9% from 260,460 a year ago.

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ENCANA CORP. $23 (New York symbol ECA; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 741.0 million; Market cap: $17.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.6; Dividend yield: 1.2%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.encana.com) focuses on six core properties: Montney (B.C.), Duvernay (Alberta), DJ Basin (Colorado), San Juan Basin (New Mexico); Tuscaloosa Marine Shale (Louisiana) and Eagle Ford (Texas).

These areas contain large amounts of oil and natural gas liquids, such as butane and propane. That cuts Encana’s exposure to weak natural gas prices. The company recently set up PriarieSky Royalty Ltd. (Toronto symbol PSK) as a new firm to hold its Clearwater properties in southern Alberta. PriarieSky doesn’t drill wells or explore for new reserves. Instead, it collects royalties from other oil and gas producers.

Encana sold 46% of PrairieSky to the public for $1.5 billion. In the future, it could hand out its remaining 54% stake to its investors as a special dividend.

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APACHE CORP. $102 (New York symbol APA; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 382.5 million; Market cap: $39.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 2.7; Dividend yield: 1.0%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.apachecorp.com) plans to sell its 13% stake in Chevron’s Wheatstone LNG project in Australia, as well as its 50% interest in a proposed LNG export terminal in Kitimat, B.C.; Chevron owns the remaining 50%.

These moves are partly due to pressure from activist investment firm Jana Partners, which owns about 1.0% of the company. Jana feels selling these assets would give Apache $3 billion to $4 billion that it can use to buy back shares. It could also use the cash to expand its U.S. oil and gas operations.

The company has already sold $10 billion of less important assets in the past 18 months as part of its plan to focus on its less risky North American onshore operations.

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CHEVRON CORP. $129 (New York symbol CVX; Conservative Growth Portfolio, Resources sector; Shares outstanding: 1.9 billion; Market cap: $245.1 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.6; Dividend yield: 3.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Above Average; www.chevron.com) is the second-largest integrated oil company in the U.S. by revenue, after ExxonMobil (New York symbol XOM).

In the second quarter of 2014, Chevron produced 2.55 million barrels a day (67% oil, 33% natural gas), down 1.4% from 2.58 million barrels a year earlier. Even so, earnings rose 5.6%, to $5.7 billion from $5.4 billion. Chevron spent $1.25 billion on share buybacks in the latest quarter, so its earnings per share rose at a faster rate of 7.6%, to $2.98 from $2.77.

Cash flow per share, which excludes gains on sales of less important properties, rose 3.6%, to $8.96 from $8.65. Revenue gained 1.0%, to $57.9 billion from $57.4 billion.

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TIM HORTONS INC. $80 (New York symbol THI; Aggressive Growth Portfolio, Consumer sector; Shares outstanding: 132.8 million; Market cap: $10.6 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 3.8; Dividend yield: 1.5%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.timhortons.com) became a wholly owned subsidiary of the Wendy’s hamburger chain in 1995. Under pressure from activist investors, Wendy’s spun off Tims as a separate company in 2006.

The stock is up 183% since the spinoff, partly because Tims has just accepted a friendly takeover offer from Miami-based Burger King Worldwide Inc. (New York symbol BKW).

Tims shareholders can opt to take $88.50 (Canadian) a share in cash, or 3.0879 shares of Burger King (worth $93.72 U.S.). However, Burger King plans to limit the overall cash payout, so most Tims investors will get $65.50 (Canadian) in cash plus 0.8025 of a share (for a total of $84.69 U.S.).

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AT&T INC. $35 (New York symbol T; Conservative Growth and Income Portfolios, Utilities sector; Shares outstanding: 5.2 billion; Market cap: $182.0 billion; Price-to-sales ratio: 1.4; Dividend yield: 5.3%; TSINetwork Rating: Average; www.att.com) is the largest wireless service provider in the U.S., with 116.6 million subscribers. This business supplies 55% of the company’s revenue and 75% of its earnings.

The remaining 45% of revenue and 25% of earnings comes from its wireline division, which sells phone services, television packages and high-speed Internet access to 35.9 million customers. AT&T’s overall revenue rose 4.7%, from $123.0 billion in 2009 to $128.8 billion in 2013.

Earnings gained 8.6%, from $12.5 billion in 2009 to $13.6 billion in 2010. Earnings per share rose at a slower pace of 8.0%, from $2.12 to $2.29, on more shares outstanding.

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Every Thursday we bring you “Best U.S. Stocks.”. You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion. You will read about stocks making moves you should know about, from coverage in our newsletter on U.S. investing, Wall Street Stock Forecaster. IBM has a long history of drifting in and out of investor favour, mainly due to fear that new technologies will put it out of business. However, IBM also has long history of successfully shifting out of slowing businesses into faster-growing fields. For example, as computer prices fell in the 1990s, IBM expanded its more-profitable software and consulting operations. Later it unloaded its struggling personal computer operations, and now it’s selling its low-end server business. It will invest the proceeds in areas such as cloud computing and analytics software....

We’ve just updated and re-released one of our most popular free reports: Dividend Paying Stocks: How High Dividend Stocks Can Supercharge Your Income Investing. It’s ready for you to download now. With today’s low interest rates, investors are paying more attention to dividend yields. Dividend paying stocks are responding by doing their best to maintain, or even increase, their payouts. In fact, dividends can now contribute up to a third of your long-term investment returns, without even considering the tax-cutting effects of the dividend tax credit....

Every Tuesday we bring you “Best Canadian Stocks.” You get our specific recommendation on the stocks we profile, with a full explanation of how we arrived at our opinion....